Contents

History

The CEV project began as a result of studies conducted by Barclay Newman in 1985 into speech patterns used in books, magazines, newspapers, and television. These studies focused on how English was read and heard. This led to a series of test volumes being published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Among the volumes published were Luke Tells the Good News About Jesus (1987), The Good News Travels Fast - The Acts Of The Apostles (1988), A Few Who Dared to Trust God (1990), and A Book About Jesus (1991). In 1991, the 175th anniversary of the American Bible Society, the CEV New Testament was released. The CEV Old Testament was released in 1995. In 1999, The Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books were published.

While the CEV is sometimes mischaracterized as a revision of the Good News Bible, it is in fact a fresh translation, and designed for a lower reading level than the GNB. The American Bible Society continues to promote both translations.

Translation principles and features

In translating the CEV, the translators followed three translation principles. They were:

must be understood by people without stumbling in speech

must be understood by those with little or no comprehension of "Bible" language

must be understood by all.

The CEV uses gender-sensitive language for humanity and not for the Godhead. The translation also takes care to simplify "Bible" terms into more understandable words and phrases. An example can be found in where the word adultery is translated Be faithful in marriage. The translators have also taken great care to translate the Greek phrase hoi Ioudaioi (literally, "the Jews") as "the Jewish leaders," especially in the Gospel of John (as in John 18:14). The CEV translators believe, along with many (but not all) biblical scholars, that the Greek phrase hoi Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John primarily refers to the Jewish leadership, not to the Jewish people, as a whole. Therefore, their translation as "the Jewish leaders" is intended to increase translation accuracy. One result of this translation decision is a reduction of the perception of Anti-Semitism in the New Testament.

Awards

In 1997 the British Plain English Campaign awarded the BFBS anglicized CEV a Crystal Mark award in appreciation of the clarity of its language.[][]

In October 2005, the Bible Society in Australia launched a project called SMSBible, which was the entire CEV in SMS text messages. News reports about the service claimed that the Bible spanned more than 30,000 text messages.[]